Deutsche Telekom is keeping a promise today. It is doubling the speed of the Internet in 1,250 Bavarian municipalities, to up to 100 megabits per second (Mbit/s). Until now, lines in the development areas were limited to a maximum of 50 Mbit/s. More than 800,000 households will benefit from the increased speeds starting today. Bavaria's premier Markus Söder and Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Höttges flipped a symbolic switch to activate the lines today in Inning am Ammersee.

Prime Minister Dr. Markus Söder: "The broadband expansion in Bavaria is in full swing. After completion of the current construction work, 98 percent of all Bavarian households will have fast Internet access. With today's event, we have taken another important step towards comprehensive high-speed Internet in Bavaria. Our goal is to achieve gigabit for every household by 2025, and more than 40,000 kilometers of fiber optics are already being laid in Bavaria."

Höttges made a statement on the occasion: "We have reached another stage of the broadband build-out in Bavaria today. We will continue in August, when our offerings with 250 Mbit/s lines become available. 1.8 million Bavarian households will be on board."

"We are also focusing on pure fiber-optic lines," said Höttges. "Bavaria is FTTH-ready. We will be able to produce pure fiber-optic lines in nearly all exchanges by the end of the year." Deutsche Telekom is increasingly using modern trenching technology to lay the cables, which speeds up installation of optical fibers by a factor of four. The installation of above-ground lines is also driving the fiber-optic rollout.

Deutsche Telekom has doubled its build-out efforts in each of the last three years in Bavaria. More than 17,000 kilometers of optical fiber was laid in 2017 alone. "The Bavarian support program initially served basic coverage. Today, nearly 100 percent of tenders are based on pure fiber lines," said Höttges. "Bavaria's broadband support program is the largest FTTH project in Germany. Deutsche Telekom has targeted some 120,000 households for connection." In addition, the company will connect 470 business parks to the fiber-optic network by 2022. 50,000 businesses will benefit.

Deutsche Telekom is also maintaining its momentum in mobile network upgrades. The company is building a thousand new mobile stations in Bavaria by the end of 2020, with a focus on important transportation routes and rural areas. And Deutsche Telekom is going one step further. "We are fully aware of the importance of mobile communications for rural areas," said Höttges. "That's why we will close a hundred mobile coverage gaps in the next three years, in addition to the one thousand planned sites. We see this as part of our digital responsibility." Co-utilization of BOS sites in Bavaria, which was recently agreed upon, is helping to close these gaps.

In parallel, Deutsche Telekom is modernizing its mobile facilities in Bavaria. Fast transmission speeds will be available in nearly the entire mobile network by the end of 2019.

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